


hurting people

by themegalosaurus



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angsty Schmoop, Gen, Hurt Jack Kline, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Post-Season/Series 13, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Harm, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-08 22:13:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15253152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themegalosaurus/pseuds/themegalosaurus
Summary: "Sometimes it feels better if you can hurt yourself, too, if you feel like you deserve it."





	hurting people

**Author's Note:**

> Because of [this](http://themegalosaurus.tumblr.com/post/175784039623/gaywitchtwins-you-keep-hurting-people-why-do-you), of course. And because I love Sam and Jack's relationship so much.
> 
> (You can now [read this fic in Russian translation](https://ficbook.net/readfic/7645472) \- thanks Olga!)

Jack reaches over to grab the spell book Sam’s looking at. His sweatshirt sleeve tugs tight, exposing his forearm, revealing an ugly set of purple-yellow bruises. Sam’s used to seeing the people he loves beat-up but this, out of context, jars him into nauseous surprise.

“What happened?” he asks. Jack blinks at him.

Sam points, careful not to touch.

Jack frowns. “Oh. I don’t heal quickly any more,” he says.

“Yes,” says Sam. Although they have hardly hunted since Michael disappeared with Dean, Jack’s new vulnerability has already become an issue. Sam’s had to haul him back from hot pans, scalding water, blades. But they’ve done nothing lately that might explain this injury.

Jack is unperturbed. He doesn’t seem to realise that Sam’s waiting for something more, just pulls the book towards him and starts studying the contents page. Sam frowns. He doesn’t want to turn into some kind of inquisitor. And yet it takes some effort to return his attention to the work.

Once Sam starts reading again, he’s soon immersed. They’re working on a spell to summon an archangel. This is, Sam believes, the key to finding Dean. Once Michael’s in the room Sam is sure (he’s not sure; he hopes, he has to believe) that he can get through to his brother. Sam got control of Lucifer. Dean can rein Michael in.

It’s a long process, spell work. Sam isn’t a natural witch (yes, he did call Max and no, Max didn’t pick up; Rowena’s been helpful, in a guarded way). And the ingredients for this particular ritual have been hard to find. Cas has been crisscrossing the globe. Sam’s developed an uncomfortable familiarity with the more unsavoury regions of the dark web. Now, though, they should have everything assembled. He’s just rechecking the incantations before he begins the casting. It will take up to three days. The spells are in an obscure sort of Enochian and some of them must be repeated seven or thirteen, even sixty-six times through. Jack and Cas will play backup; Sam will take the lead.

“You can do it, Sam,” Jack says with conviction. “I know we’ll get Dean back.”

“Yeah. We’ll get him back,” Sam says.

Some time between fifty and sixty hours later, Sam’s confidence and his concentration are both beginning to shake. He hasn’t slept since beginning the spell and he’s not sure of the last time he ate. Cas and Jack have both faded in and out of the room but there seem to be a lot of full plates still piled at his elbow, a lot of empty coffee cups on his other side. The effort, however, is beginning to pay off. The potion Sam’s brewing is shifting in its brass bowl, moving in sparkling surges of its own accord. The surface flickers emerald, sapphire, amethyst, pearl.

He barely registers Jack when the kid walks in; doesn’t hear what Jack says to him, though he can guess at it from the inquiring tone. He’s too busy timing the minutes until the next part of the spell has to be said; two minutes forty seconds. Thirty eight. Thirty five.

Jack’s hand brushes his elbow, lifting the stack of plates from the table beside. The top one slips, and something (a sandwich, it must be; Jack and Cas can’t cook) almost falls. Jack grabs at it and catches it, putting out a hand to steady himself. The books that litter the table begin to slide. Sam doesn’t notice the movement at first; a slow avalanche that works its way forward with paralysing inevitability, until a final red leather-bound volume nudges against the edge of Sam’s round-bottomed bowl.

“No,” Sam says, hoarse-voiced, horrified. It’s too late. The vessel tips, hangs for a moment as if suspended and falls to the ground, spilling green-gold liquid over the floor. The puddle spreads, thins and evaporates, leaving only a glittering sheen behind.

Jack freezes, looks down at the mess and looks up at Sam. His face is white.

Sam bites his lip, breathes deep. “It’s okay,” he says. He’s fighting hysteria. It’s 4am and his brain is still foggy with Enochian, the words ringing and repeating. He reaches for the bowl, which has settled the right way up, almost completely empty. A few tiny drops of liquid glint in the bottom. He closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to look at Jack. “It’s okay,” he says again. “We can, uh--” He can’t think of anything. This can’t be fixed. There are ingredients in there that he can’t replace.

There’s the sound of a chair scraping over the floor and when he opens his eyes, Jack is gone. Sam allows himself a few more minutes of misery before he follows him.

He’s glad he did. Jack is pacing the corridor outside his bedroom, punching himself. “Stupid,” he’s muttering. “Stupid. Stupid.” He’s hitting himself hard enough that the flat sound echoes noisily back from the walls in an escalating, speeding rhythm. “Stupid,” Jack says again and drives his fist viciously into his side.

“Hey,” Sam says sharply. Jack stops walking. “What’s this?”

Jack looks downward. He drops his hands and looks up at Sam. There are tear tracks down his cheeks.

“I’m not mad at you,” Sam says carefully. “I know it was an accident.”

“You should be mad at me,” Jack says. “I’m always messing things up.” His whole body is held tightly, tense and unhappy. Sam recognises the posture, somehow, an echo of his adolescent self.

He edges forward. “Can I?” he says, reaching his hand toward the hem of Jack’s shirt. Jack tenses, but he nods, and Sam lifts it gently, revealing a soft, substantial spatter of bruises over Jack’s stomach and hips.

“Oh man,” he says, and lets go of the shirt. He takes a step back, careful not to crowd.

“I only _hit_ myself,” Jack says, helpfully. “Or the wall. I know it’s not sensible to use the knife while I’m like this. Like… without my powers.”

“Right,” Sam says. “The knife.”

“You know,” Jack says, and gestures stabby at his stomach. A nasty twist of panic constricts Sam’s chest. He can still see it, Jack with the archangel blade, guiding it into his flesh; the blood, blossoming out across his T-shirt.

“Yes,” he says. “No knives. Right.” He’s so tired. “Um. Coffee?”

Sam’s never had kids. It’s never even been a question. When he and Jess were dating it’d maybe played around the edges of his imagination, when he projected a future; but even then, he’d been bitter enough about Dad and how that ended to wonder if it mightn’t be better to leave things there. No more kids, no more fuck-ups. Clean slate. And yet, here he is. Sitting in Jack’s bedroom with a pot of coffee between them (he can’t face the library; all those stacked-up books and hopes), Sam tries to deliver A Talk.

“Jack,” he says. “I know that sometimes things go wrong, and you do something - we do something, everybody - that ends up hurting people or making a situation worse. Right?”

“Yes,” Jack says. A crease appears between his eyebrows, deepening slowly.

“You don’t have to punish yourself for that.” Jack’s expression doesn’t change. “I understand. Honestly. It’s easy to get angry with yourself. Sometimes it feels better if you can hurt yourself, too, if you feel like you deserve it.”

“Yes.”

“But you don’t, Jack. You don’t deserve it, not if you were trying to do the right thing.” Sam thinks. “Even if you weren’t trying to do the right thing, if you were angry or upset and lashing out, I don’t think you should be hurting yourself. It’s not good. It makes you feel worse.” Embarrassingly, he can feel his cheeks heating up, a lump thickening in his throat. He’s just tired. His eyes are hurting.

“No,” Jack says. “It helps me.”

“Maybe it feels that way,” Sam says. He is trying to tread carefully, navigating the fog of his exhaustion and uncertainty. He doesn’t know how to do this stuff. There must be books. Online resources. He can look at them later. Why didn’t he think about this, when Jack first arrived? “But in the long run, it’s not good. Honestly. It’s like you’re agreeing that you’re not good enough, when you do that. It just makes you believe it more.”

“I don’t--” Jack says. His eyes well up.

Jack’s maybe somewhere between twenty and twenty-five years old. He’s also a kid, a toddler, who’s been on the earth just over a year.

“What do I do?”

“Hey,” Sam says. He puts a hand on Jack’s shoulder. He wants to hug him, but he can’t stop thinking about the bruises all over Jack’s skin. “Um.” Then he has a thought, something he hasn’t articulated before. “Sometimes,” he says, “when I feel that way, I find it helps to, uh, work out.”

Jack shifts into Sam’s touch, turns towards him. “You feel that way.”

“Yeah,” Sam says, and then presses on and through it. “Running, you know. That kind of thing. It, uh. You can kind of push yourself till it hurts but it’s a good hurt. And you feel better afterwards. Your body makes chemicals that make you feel good. Mostly, I mean. It doesn’t work for everything. But, yeah. When I feel like that.”

“Okay,” Jack says, sniffly.

“We could, uh. We could go for a run together, if you like. To get into the habit.” Sam looks at Jack’s feet. “You might need some new sneakers. With laces.”

Jack breaks into a grin. “I can tie shoelaces, you know.”

“I know, kiddo,” Sam says ( _kiddo?!_ ), and is hit unexpectedly with the walloping blow of Dean’s absence. Shit, but Dean will tease Sam about this once he’s back. Jack running after him, behind him, like a duckling. “All right there, Mama Bear?” Dean will say.

“Where do you run?” Jack asks.

“Oh, you know,” Sam says, gesturing with his hand. Cornfields, spreading golden pale on either side. Forests, dark and cool and green. Playing fields, scratchy grass and dented football posts. Athletics tracks, uncared-for tarmac crumbling in the heat. The side of the road, out of town, all the way from school to the latest beat-up motel. Even the desert, at a pinch. It all helps. “Outside.”

They do run together, the next morning, and although Jack gets frustrated that he can’t readily keep up with Sam (for a few unhappy moments Sam feels like he’s made the whole thing worse), it turns out pretty good. “If you keep at it,” Sam says. “It’ll get easier.”

Jack nods, “Okay,” and believes him, just like that. This kid.

It’s not instantaneous, of course. The following week, Sam’s woken by a smell of burning that brings him running to the kitchen. He’s not good with fire. It sets his brain running dangerously, burning bodies, melted flesh. Jess, open-mouthed and screaming. Lucifer, running bright orange flames over Sam’s skin.

Jack has burned a grilled cheese - burned it to an unrecognisable cinder - and Sam’s so relieved that that’s all it is he doesn’t even think to get mad. But once he’s aired the room and stuck the thing in the trash, he catches Jack catching himself a frustrated blow to the upper arm. When he sees Sam’s wince, he turns pink, tucking his hands behind his back.

“Sorry, Sam. I forgot.”

“It’s okay,” Sam says. “You know you didn’t deserve that, right?”

Jack glances sideways, away.

“If I made a mistake,” Sam says, “You wouldn’t hit me, right?”

“No!” says Jack. “I love you!”

When Jack first told Sam that, Lucifer was looming threatening beside them and Jack was pointing a knife at his own gut. It had hit Sam like a punch, dizzying. Since then, Jack’s not stopped saying it. He says it at dinner time when Sam serves up; when they go to bed. It should probably be annoying. In actuality, Sam’s disconcerted by how much it means; affection, served up openly like there’s nothing to fear. Dean loves him, he knows that, but it’s always freighted with something else. Jack loves me, he catches himself thinking sometimes as he brushes his teeth. Isn’t that something.

And so, “I love you!”

“Okay,” Sam says, “Right, yes. And, um. I love you too. But so, then, you gotta think of yourself like that. Right? You gotta, um.” He’s really blushing now. This is probably dumb, and definitely hypocritical. “You gotta love yourself. Right, Jack?”

“Yes,” Jack says. He looks doubtfully at his fist.

“It’s okay that you forget sometimes,” Sam says. “It’ll take a while to learn.”

Jack nods to himself. “I’m still learning.” He picks his glass of juice up from the table, looks up and flashes a brilliant smile. “Thanks, Sam.”

 

~~~

 

“Come on,” Michael says in Dean’s un-voice. “You’ll have to do better than that.” And with a fluttering of wings he vanishes. Sam slumps suddenly where he’s been held against the wall, the fall jarring his knees with the impact of the concrete floor. Across the room, Jack and Cas hit the ground with twin thuds, dun-dun.

Sam’s whole body is alight with the electric force of his disappointment. He had thought, really believed, they had it. So much time and repeated labour; so much blood expended. Lives lost. (He shouldn’t think about that now. He can’t.) And yet. A great bubble of frustration at his own inadequacy swells suffocating in his chest.

He looks up to see Castiel hunched in the corner, grey-faced and weary. As Sam looks at him, he forces a smile. “Don’t worry,” he says. “We will try again. We can get Dean back.”

“Yeah,” Sam says. He doesn’t say, How? With what? He doesn’t say, I’ve got no ideas left.

They all travel together back to the motel. The car is too small, uncomfortable. Sam wishes Dean were here to drive it.

“I should return to heaven,” Cas says as they arrive. “Naomi needs as many angels in attendance as she can get. But you can pray to me any time and I’ll be there, Sam, all right?”

Sam nods, hardly listening. What a stupid mistake, to call for Michael with only the three of them there to counter him; they should have had some backup, Rowena running a spell. But it had been Sam who insisted on moving now, without waiting; who didn’t want to make time to call for Mom or this new not-Bobby she’s with. Sam’s error, Sam’s fault, Sam’s failure. It’s on him.

“Do you want to go for a run?” Jack says.

Sam does want to go for a run; alone. But Jack looks worried and Sam was the one who got him started doing this; and he doesn’t want to leave the kid here and come back to find him with a broken arm or something.

“Sure,” he says.

For once, the smack of his feet on the ground and the burn in his legs don’t seem to be helping. Instead it’s like every step is beating into Sam’s brain, “You failed you failed you failed you failed.” He can't shake the image of Dean's face, split-second raw terror for the moment Michael let him peek through. Sam knows that feeling.

He speeds up, looks left and right at the next junction without pausing and takes the turn to head out of town. He doesn’t want to be stopping for crossings. He wants to run until it hurts.

The asphalt underfoot turns gravelly and Sam keeps running, faster now, pushing himself until his lungs are straining. His legs are screaming at him, his jarred knees complaining. Sam runs. His vision starts to grey at the edges, spots flickering multicoloured across his vision. “Come on,” Sam thinks to himself. “Come on, you piece of shit.”

When Sam was a teen, he used to run like this a lot. He would tell himself that it was Dad who made them do this; that he had to push himself if he didn’t want to be reamed out, grounded, scorned. In fact, it made him feel good. He spent too much time back then feeling less than, worrying that he might do more. If you run until you physically can’t go further, you know you’ve given everything. You can feel it.

He can feel it now, tearing hot in his throat, the air scraping raw down into his lungs. His muscles are shaking, his joints cracking. “Come _on,_ ” he thinks, his own voice, Dad’s voice, Dean’s. “You need a chaperone? What is this? A stroll?”

He tries for another burst of speed, pushes forward and suddenly something is rising, suffocating, his stomach twisting as he folds forward to vomit messy onto the ground. He gropes his hands towards his knees, stumbles, and collapses in his own filth. Stones dig into his kneecaps. His chest is heaving. Everything hurts.

He’s not sure how long he kneels in this way before he hears footsteps approaching, dragging and uneven. Jack.

“Sam?” Jack says. “I couldn’t keep up.”

Right. Fuck. Something else for Sam to add to the list. Failed Jack when he was counting on me.

He doesn’t look up. He just can’t deal with this right now, with any of it.

“Sam,” Jack says again from above him. Sam hears the crunching of gravel as Jack sits down. His face appears at the edge of Sam’s vision, blurry and pale. “Are you okay?” he says uncertainly.

“I’m fine,” Sam starts to say. He reconsiders. “No.” He lets himself look at Jack, properly, though he doesn’t straighten up.

Jack nods. He looks very serious. “You hurt yourself. On purpose.”

“Yes.” Sam drops his face into his hands. Shit.

“Don’t cry,” Jack says. He sounds panicky and Sam can’t-- he’s not sure why he ever thought that he could do this, being a dad or anything like it. He’s too fucked up.

The scar tissue in his left palm presses a familiar line across his cheek. Lucifer’s dead. Lucifer’s dead and Sam was supposed to feel better, to have stopped relying on the pain. He doesn’t need to ground himself any more. This is real, it all is, the whole shitty unbelievable scope of it. Dean.

Sam’s chest is squeezing. He can hear his own breaths, rasping in an inhuman wheeze. He needs to hold it together but it feels like everything’s slipping, through his fingers, out of control.

“Oh,” says Jack tearfully. His hand touches Sam’s shoulder, his fingertips gripping tentatively. Sam leans into it, gulping air, scrambling for control. “Sorry,” he says, breathless. He can’t form a sentence right now.

“It’s not your fault,” Jack says. And then again more firmly, “It’s not your fault.”

Sam breathes in, a long slow swallow through his nose and then his open mouth. Jack’s hand is steadier on his shoulder now, the palm warm against Sam’s goosebumped skin. He looks at Sam with his usual open expression. “You didn’t mean it.”

“To hurt myself?” Sam asks. “I kinda did.” He doesn’t know where that comes from. He’d never say that to Dean. Not that Dean doesn’t know Sam does that, sometimes; not that he likes it. But they don’t talk about it. Sam just shoulders the disapproval and presses on.

“No,” Jack says. “You didn’t mean to-- you didn’t do anything wrong.” He lifts his hand, pats Sam softly. “It’s okay.”

Sam swallows, painful in his throat which is raw, now, with acid and breathing both.

“It’s okay that you forgot,” Jack says.

“Yeah,” says Sam. He wipes a hand across his face, wet and embarrassing. “You’re kneeling in, uh,” he says.

“Oh,” says Jack. He stands up and holds out his hand. “Shall we walk back?”

Sam puts his palms on the ground, pushes upward, but his knees are shaking. Jack’s hand is still extended, insistent. Sam reaches out and wraps his fingers around Jack’s wrist. Jack tugs and lifts him. Sam stands.

Jack holds his hand the whole way back, clasped tight against Sam's scar.

**Author's Note:**

> I love your kudos but I voraciously devour your comments!! <3


End file.
